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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25563961">The Antidote</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarshmallowMcGonagall/pseuds/MarshmallowMcGonagall'>MarshmallowMcGonagall</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Aurors, Death Eaters, F/M, Grimmauld Place, Healing, Implied Self-Harm, Order of the Phoenix - Freeform, Overdosing, Potions, Summer of 1996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:40:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,457</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25563961</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarshmallowMcGonagall/pseuds/MarshmallowMcGonagall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months after the battle at the Department of Mysteries, and back on duty as an Auror, another clash with Death Eaters leaves Tonks in a bad way. She returns to Grimmauld Place, where secrets aren’t the only poison.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Severus Snape/Nymphadora Tonks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Antidote</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.</i><br/>
—Paracelsus, father of toxicology, 1493–1541</p><p> </p><p>In the basement of Grimmauld Place Sirius smacked his hand against the kitchen table as he arrived again at a dead end. There was no one else he could call on to help Tonks, and Aurors were known for their habits of employing magic and potions they shouldn’t while avoiding St Mungo’s. But something was wrong and Remus agreed. She only sipped at glasses of water, and refused plates of simple food prepared by Kreacher. </p><p>A curse, she claimed. One she refused to name and wouldn’t let anyone near to heal. An entire team of Aurors were recovering after the clash which had turned into a massacre. Moody had given them two weeks off work to recover while he managed the aftermath. All the Death Eaters had fled. All the Muggles were dead. And the Aurors escaped with their lives. </p><p>Sirius had been watching her for a week. When she didn't ask him to leave, he sat on the end of the bed and stared at the clear skies which were unveiled as the sun burned off the fog each morning. She had owled her parents, and so had he. Andromeda cautioned him to be gentle. But what use was gentle at a time like this?</p><p>She returned while there was still a haze in the air. Refused to talk. Curled up under blankets despite the heat. Her eyes closed, he stroked the back of her hand. At his words of worry, she pulled away. He left, pausing in the doorway, trying to figure out what was missing, what he wasn't seeing.</p><p>Moody only stopped by to see she was alive. He looked her up and down, nodded, then left the bedroom. Sirius challenged him in the hallway. Couldn't he do something? She'll come right in the end, said Moody. You weren't there.</p><p>Moody’s words echoed around Grimmauld Place long after he Disapparated.</p><p>Everyone knew that an Auror brought down was like an injured animal cornered. There was a reason they were good at fighting Dark Magic and those who practiced it. Even members of the Order wanted nothing to do with Aurors unless pressed. Remus had done what he could to assess her, but his knowledge of Dark Magic had always been focused on creatures. If there were wounds, he could have had a fair chance at healing them, but on the one occasion he nudged her blankets, she managed to draw her wand on him and he was reminded why she made a fierce Auror. But then she collapsed back onto the bed and he left with her whispered apology following him.</p><p>Remus said the name when Sirius couldn't. Sirius met Remus's worried gaze and knew he would have to leave regrets for later. She needed someone who stood a chance of healing her.</p><p>Sirius sent the owl and wondered if Tonks would ever forgive him.</p><p>The heat of the August evening was suffocating in the bedroom. Squinting because of the light, she looked up at the window when there was the crack of Apparition, before slowly tucking her head against the pillow and curling up more tightly. Everything hurt. She had a vague notion of it hurting more to curl up, but she wanted to be small. Wanted to disappear, if only for a while. As she waited for the next reminder, the noise of Muggle London fought its way through the open sash windows, and past the peeling paint on the frame. The slam of a door. The crash of a gate. A child’s scream. Eyes screwed up, her pain formed constellations.</p><p>There was a knock.</p><p>“Tonks?” said Sirius, opening the door and walking into the room. He crouched down beside the bed and looked at the floor. He didn’t want to look at the man who was the last person he wanted to have inside his house by choice. He didn’t want to look at Tonks who would think he’d betrayed her given why she was hurt in the first place. But he was out of options. “I’m worried.”</p><p>Tonks’s eyes fluttered open and she caught sight of Remus and Snape standing just outside the doorway. Her attention fixed on Snape, she almost missed Sirius telling her there was no one else who knew enough about Dark Magic, and would she please just let Snape treat her if he could? She heard the hesitation in Sirius’s voice as he said Snape’s name. Heard the venom just beneath. Heard the panic he wasn’t even trying to disguise.</p><p>“Yes,” she croaked.</p><p>“What?” said Sirius, looking up just as she managed to bring her gaze away from Snape.</p><p>“You’ll need to leave,” she said, the exhaustion from talking plain for all to see.</p><p>“But—” Sirius’s protest died on his lips as he watched Tonks’s eyes close.</p><p>She didn’t want to hurt Sirius by refusing Snape’s help. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. A lorry trundled through the square below and she shuddered, sending fresh waves of pain through her body.</p><p>Sirius stroked her arm then his hand went to his mouth when he felt how cold she was. He stood up quickly and strode across the room. Remus grabbed Sirius before he could say the words which were ready to fall from his lips as he looked at Snape.</p><p>“We’ll be down in the kitchen,” said Remus, as he and Snape exchanged a glance and nodded at each other.</p><p>Snape went into the room and Sirius looked back at Tonks as Snape closed the door.</p><p>Once Remus and Sirius’s footsteps faded away as they went downstairs, Snape cast wards and silencing charms. He took the chair from beside the small dressing table and brought it over to the bed. There was a clunk as he put his bag on the floor, then he sat down.</p><p>Her eyes were still closed and she was curled up under a light blanket. His gaze lingered on her bare shoulder. He wondered if Sirius and Remus had spotted the way her skin faded slowly back and forth between something which allowed for the suggestion of illness and something which was considerably more ominous. Or that the messy plait which lay across her neck was its natural brown because she couldn’t exert any control over it.</p><p>“Stop metamorphosing,” he said. “You’re only exhausting yourself doing it, so I’m unsure as to why you’re engaging in the performance.”</p><p>Slowly her brown eyes opened. She swore at him. “It wasn’t for your benefit.”</p><p>He wasn’t meant to be in Grimmauld Place. In the bedroom. In front of her. This was her escape. Her hiding place. When she knew he couldn’t come anyway. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She groaned in pain. As if he’d come knowing she was hurt. All the Aurors were. Everyone knew. He was only here because of Sirius.</p><p>“Yet you’re still doing it,” he said, his gaze drifting over the bruises and scrapes scattered along her jaw.</p><p>Not for much longer, she thought.</p><p>“You had to be pulled from the fight.”</p><p>“How?” The word fell from her lips. “Who?”</p><p>“No one,” he said, with a sad smile. </p><p>With her. Against her. He knew how she fought. Until the end. Until there was nothing left. Until the scales tipped and she knew there was no other option. And she would still look back. He knew Moody wielded her capabilities with care. Where had it gone wrong this time?</p><p>She was tired. She wanted to sleep and let herself heal. The cuts and bruises. The broken ribs and her twisted wrist. She wanted the pain to go away.</p><p>And she got it wrong. </p><p>Everything had gone wrong.</p><p>The Death Eaters escaped.</p><p>The Muggles were dead.</p><p>Everyone left alive was hurt.</p><p>She saved no one.</p><p>Would the Daily Prophet accuse them of incompetency? Or just shrug and call it a tragedy? How many Howlers had Moody fended off? Would they still be trusted to keep people safe? Or would people say thank you, like usual, and walk away too quickly? Because there was always the question of how Aurors could fight Death Eaters. That whilst everyone was of course grateful for everything Aurors did, wasn’t it a bit uncomfortable how they did it? </p><p>His suspicions strengthened the longer he watched her fighting herself, the guilt radiating off her like an aura. Standing up, he looked around at the different pieces of ornate furniture, the room decorated in the same obnoxious way as the rest of the house.</p><p>“Black tells me you were cursed,” said Snape, narrowing his eyes at an old wizard watching them from a portrait.</p><p>With a flick of Snape’s wand, the painted wizard clapped his hands to his ears and a blindfold covered his eyes. The wizard left the portrait muttering old obscenities and Snape put his wand back inside his robes. </p><p>“I’m sure you know all about what happened,” said Tonks, watching the blank space where an ancestor she couldn’t remember had been moments before. “Or did we do so poorly that you weren’t needed?”</p><p>“You landed a few hits.” Arms crossed, he listened to her breathing change, then he went over to the dressing table which sat beneath the window. He ran his fingers over the ornate woodwork which graced the drawer fronts. “You fought—or so I was told—dirty.”</p><p>She knew there was no point stopping him, and still she whispered, “Don’t.”</p><p>He opened the drawer which sat a fraction proud of the facing. “I wouldn’t have to if you would tell me.”</p><p>The vial lay in amongst others he recognised. Healing. Invigorating. Pain relieving. Where there might have been jewels, there were small instruments to detect Dark Magic. A Sneakoscope lay quietly atop Ministry papers and a Foe-Glass showed nothing more than mist where it was nestled beside a pair of dragonhide gloves. The vial which interested him still shone from the remnants of the draught it had contained. He picked up the vial and light glanced off the rounded glass as he turned it in his hand. He closed the drawer and went back across the room. </p><p>He sat down and tipped the vial, watching the last of the draught trace a path down towards the stopper. Tonks shuddered as a wave of pain rumbled through her body. Her head was swimming and the room kept moving, a night’s sky of stars coming and going from her vision like the ebb and flow of the tides.</p><p>She didn’t want him to look at her. He would know. She didn’t like that she was glad he was there. “I misjudged—”</p><p>“You’re not stupid,” he snapped.</p><p>“I was in pain,” she said, trying to push herself up. Had she been well, she would have been shouting, but what came out was little more than a quiet screech.</p><p>He leaned closer and snarled, “Stop metamorphosing.”</p><p>She met his dark gaze and collapsed onto the bed, turning her head against the pillow and screaming when the pain ricocheted through her. She metamorphosed too quickly, her body overwhelmed when it was doing its best just to stay alive, and she lurched across the bed and threw up on the floor. He vanished the mess with a flick of his wand. She sank down so her head hung over the edge of the bed, strands of hair falling forward and obscuring her vision along with the stars. She thought the vomiting had passed.</p><p>He wanted to leave. Wanted to be there. Wanted to demand answers he already knew. Wanted not to be cruel to try and be—</p><p>She held out a shaking hand as she moved back until she could press her face to the mattress.</p><p>She couldn’t go to the castle. Couldn’t run to him. Couldn’t have faced him even if he was there. So she numbed herself instead. She was meant to sleep off this pain, but it was as though her body was filled with echoes of every curse fired that night. As if Dark Magic was creeping through her, trying to take—</p><p>His hand slipped around hers. His other hand went to her wrist, not to check for her pulse, but to brush his thumb across her cold scarred skin.</p><p>“I tried,” she said, through tears muffled by the sheets, as she tried to hold onto him though her fingers were clumsy from pain.</p><p>“I know you did.”</p><p>He didn’t like that he had been keeping count of the days since she pushed back the covers and—</p><p>She lurched forward and threw up again on the worn rug. There had been nothing left in her for hours. For however long it had been since hours turned into days. She gasped for breath and a whine escaped her.</p><p>He vanished the mess and she turned back towards the bed, her arm outstretched, not letting go of him. She fumbled for the towel which was squashed between her and the pillow, meaning to wipe her face, only for pain to embrace her. She bit the towel as a scream of guttural agony poured out of her. </p><p>His associates were in various states of disarray when he left them. Potions as needed. Healing for curses he admitted to knowing. Keeping cover. Small sabotages. And she was barely letting him near her. Or maybe he was pushing her away. He was only here because he was Black’s last resort. He wasn’t even that to her. He couldn't protect her. Didn't try. She wouldn't let him if he did. </p><p>“You’re not stupid,” he murmured.</p><p>“Don’t lie to me.” She turned her head to look at him and her brown eyes, red-rimmed and shining with tears, found his. “Just for today.”</p><p>“You did the best you could."</p><p>Her cry nearly choked her. She wanted him to be angry with her. Wanted him to grab her shoulders and pull her close. Wanted someone to scream at her how she had failed. Wanted someone who wouldn’t paint her pain with heroics. </p><p>Her hand was about to slip from his when he tightened his grip. “Don’t tell me all the Aurors do it.”</p><p>“They—”</p><p>“Push the limits as far as you?" He withdrew his wand from his robes. "Will you allow me to?”</p><p>She hesitated for a moment then nodded.</p><p>One after another he cast spells. Lights which surrounded her, hesitated to touch her, bled across her. Colours which changed. Flickered. Became opaque only to turn transparent a moment later. He lowered his wand and the lights faded away.</p><p>"You knew what you were doing," he said, anger echoing through his disbelief. “Did you consider how fine the line would be between recovering without help and—”</p><p>Pulling her hand from his, she staggered up from in the bed, stumbling until her hands slammed against the wardrobe, rattling the doors which winter shirts too warm to wear hid behind.</p><p>He stayed in the chair, his elbows resting on his thighs, and his gaze drifted to the delicate patterns weaved into the rug. He listened to her unsteady footsteps punctuated by pain. Her sniffs and gasps. The door of the en-suite bathroom slammed shut.</p><p>She stared at herself in the mirror. She could have believed she was a ghost if it weren’t for the foul taste in her mouth and each deep breath pulling new pain from the fractures in her ribs. From every raw part of her. She undid the plait which was falling apart and groaned as she put her hair up in a simple bun.</p><p>He picked up the bag he had brought with him and put it on the bed. He was too used to potions which others would baulk at. It took little effort to put together what she needed. But she needed so much more. All he could give her was a potion to ease what she would recover from eventually. He put the stopper in the vial and turned it over and over so that everything mixed together.</p><p>She would heal.</p><p>With or without him.</p><p>But ease.</p><p>He could give her that.</p><p>A little less pain.</p><p>A little. </p><p>Her arms heavy, her body aching, she managed to brush her teeth on her third attempt. Biting down on the toothbrush, hands grasping the sink, she knew she could recover from what she had done.</p><p>She didn’t want his potions.</p><p>She wanted him.</p><p>There were meant to be weeks to go before she was allowed to consider wanting him again.</p><p>If he still wanted her.</p><p>If he’d let himself.</p><p>She came back into the bedroom topless, t-shirt in hand, pyjama bottoms low enough to show the scars which traced up over one of her hips and across her back.</p><p>The last moment was stolen in the unforgiving minutes after the first big Order meeting which followed the battle at the Department of Mysteries. In the basement kitchen of Grimmauld Place, the door closed, his hands on her hips elicited a wince. Her rushed words, the first in weeks, to tell him she was still healing. Her lips rushing to find his. His hands moving to safer territory too late. The handle turned, the door opened, and the distance between them was only going to get bigger.</p><p>Dropping his old t-shirt on the floor beside the chest of drawers, she could feel his gaze on her while she took out a fresh top and pulled it on. Her hands grasped the carefully carved wood. The world wasn’t staying upright the way it was meant to.</p><p>He walked over to her and she turned and stumbled. He caught her and she grasped his arms. His robes slipping from her fingers, she forced herself to raise her head and look at him. How long since it had led to something different? Since war infiltrated every last chance?</p><p>From the pocket of his robes he retrieved the potion he had mixed for her, and held the vial up. “Do you want it or not?”</p><p>Yes, no, yes, no. With the little hold she had on him, she pulled him closer. His legs either side of hers, no distance left as she leaned closer. Hesitating, she rested her head against his.</p><p>His arm around her was agony.</p><p>She wanted him to hold on tighter. </p><p>“You’ll get over this,” he said.</p><p>She screwed up her eyes. “Lie to me.”</p><p>“Everything’s going to be okay.”</p><p>His low words murmured against her neck, she could almost believe he was telling the truth, that he knew prophecies no one else did. It would just be a step, no more than a skip, and she could let herself live in a wish.</p><p>Let his Dark Mark be little more than a tattoo. Let him stop burning. Let him say her name outside of the shadows with something other than indifference.</p><p>Her breaths dissolved into sobs. “I can’t do it.” Her hands moved clumsily up to his face as she pulled away.</p><p>How often had the turn of a door handle been all the warning they risked. Now they were behind wards and charms. </p><p>“You’ll be happier the sooner you get back out in the field,” he said.</p><p>He undid the vial and brought the smooth glass to her lips. He tipped the vial slowly until she swallowed all the potion, then her hand flew to her mouth.</p><p>“You may feel sick but trust it’s meant to stay down.”</p><p>She nodded but kept her hand on her mouth. There was no escape. No chance to numb or find a release.</p><p>“Pettigrew is still staying with me,” he said, “and eager to report back anything he deems worthy of snitching on.”</p><p>She lowered her hand. “You’re here because of the Order.”</p><p>A breeze slunk through the window and lifted strands of hair from her face.</p><p>The apology was there, and he knew she would be furious if he said the words. “Because of you.”</p><p>She shook her head then closed her eyes and clutched her forehead. </p><p>He murmured her name. </p><p>That hurt more.</p><p>Her hands drifting to his body, her eyes opened, and his name fell from her lips.</p><p>There had been no time for the goodbye they realised they wanted once the door slammed shut.</p><p>"Why not let anyone near you?" He didn’t need her to tell him, but he wanted to hear the words from her all the same, and hated himself for it. "Even if you thought you knew what you were doing."</p><p>"There was only one person I would want touching me," she said, searching his eyes, "and I knew he wasn’t going to come."</p><p>And yet somehow they found each other when they needed to. Found. As if she tripped into his quarters, and he caught her by accident in the deserted kitchen of Grimmauld Place.</p><p>“What’s going to happen?” she asked, quietly.</p><p>"You'd have recovered either way," he said, tucking loose strands of her hair behind her ear. "But what you just had should ease the worst of it."</p><p>She gave an empty laugh. "Are you sure about that?"</p><p>"Unless there's something else you're hiding from me, then yes."</p><p>The silence hung heavy between them. Old conversations ricocheting. Threads of possibilities and musings and wonderings which unravelled all too easily when woven in the dark.</p><p>She wasn't the one with secrets and they both knew it.</p><p>He wanted to look away but couldn't. "I forgot I'm meant to be lying to you. Forgive me."</p><p>"You want my forgiveness?"</p><p>"No." </p><p>The last time there had been a bed nearby, there had been wards and silencing charms, too.</p><p>And time.</p><p>Like a precious treasure.</p><p>There had been time.</p><p>“I need you,” she whispered, and his gaze darted to her lips.</p><p>Amongst the shards of glass in the Hall of Prophecies, might there have been the remnants of their future? She didn't want to put her faith in globes filled with the records of memories. Of words which could twist like smoke. She wanted him. And an ending to the war where they could have a proper beginning. Where they were alive when the dust settled. </p><p>An excuse which tripped off her tongue when she bumped into people on her way to the castle. Disillusionment Charms and sneaking into the dungeons. Passing through the wards on his quarters. How often had mugs of coffee gone cold? Swirls of steam disappearing into the cool spring mornings as conversation gave way to what secrecy gave them. </p><p>Life began to bleed into the grey. As if she had been walking through misty woods, her outline was becoming more defined in the golden sunset, war's latest attempt to take her thwarted.</p><p>He couldn't stop the war. Couldn’t stop her getting hurt. Still she came to him. Still his name fell from her lips. Whispered, laughed, panted. He wondered if she would return.</p><p>Owls weren't safe. Moments after Order meetings were stolen. Everywhere compromised. Grimmauld Place. Spinner's End. The castle off limits until he returned in September. Her every hour assigned to increasing patrols and recovery now they were officially at war.</p><p>She put her mug down beside his, pulled off her top, and questioned if the journal was really the most interesting thing in front of him. She finished undressing and pushed back the covers. </p><p>He stroked her cheek. There was something resembling warmth returning to her. A car door slammed shut and she flinched. He pulled her closer and she buried her face in his shoulder. </p><p>A shudder ran through her and she gasped as though the pain was trying to pull her under.</p><p>“Please,” she begged, quietly. “I didn't mean—”</p><p>“I believe you.”</p><p>She would run back into the fight. And in doing so, he knew she would push every limit at her disposal so long as it didn’t harm anyone else but herself. Barren lands could be all that were left and still she would tread the terrain looking for possibilities. </p><p>Hiding in the shadows of the castle. Escaping to the dungeons. His quarters, where their only witness was the firelight. He wanted to feel guilty each time she came to his bed. Instead she kissed him and he remembered why he couldn't say goodbye. He had tried. Not yet. Just once more. He ignored, with every bit of conviction he could find, that she came from Seers when she spoke of things still to pass once the dust settled. He knew all too well what prophecies could bring. How they could twist. How they killed. She saw the brand and pressed her lips to the darkness. Said everyone’s made bad choices.</p><p>Ready to leave, she asked the question which had been pushed aside for later. When could she come again?</p><p>His silence condemned him.</p><p>His summer decided for him.</p><p>The plans for the year ahead he couldn't tell her.</p><p>The threats to their world.</p><p>The threats to them. </p><p>She left. Beneath her robes, his old t-shirt soft against her skin.</p><p>"I'll tell Black it was a curse only a Death Eater would know."</p><p>She nodded and let him lead her back to the bed. So many things only Death Eaters knew. She wondered what was to come that he couldn't tell her.</p><p>"How long?" </p><p>“For as long as Moody has given you.”</p><p>She closed her eyes and gave a bitter laugh. She had no strength left yet he came closer at her touch and knelt beside the bed. His arms slipping around her, she turned towards his embrace, his robes sweeping around her.</p><p>Her body was about to shatter.</p><p>Splinters of pain and swells of agony.</p><p>She wanted him to hold her closer.</p><p>Autumn would come eventually but he couldn't risk more of summer. He wondered if the first chills of autumn would bring her back to him. If she would search his wardrobe for another of his winter shirts.</p><p>What to say to him.</p><p>He stood up and grabbed his bag.</p><p>Thank you.</p><p>Strode across the room.</p><p>How could you.</p><p>Hesitated.</p><p>Fuck you.</p><p>Didn't glance back. </p><p>I love you.</p><p>Opened the door and left.</p><p>She lay in the sunset and stared at the t-shirt on the floor. She wondered if he would ignore that she already had several of his winter shirts if she turned up in September and pleaded being cold.</p><p>He put down the journal and she climbed into bed. He promised her the wards on his quarters would be the same in the autumn. Later, she said. There were still weeks of spring left, let alone summer. What was he worrying about? His hands on her hips, he pulled her closer. She murmured his name, then her soft lips found his.</p>
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